Changing the lives of children in Nepal for eight years

Kellie Ahern, a senior laboratory analyst at Cook Medical in Ireland, has just returned from her sixth visit to Nepal. She has spent a total of 20 months in Nepal over the past eight years, helping impoverished and vulnerable children. Kellie raised over €2,000 for her recent trip with the help of her colleagues and friends at Cook Medical, Ireland.

Why Nepal?

Having first travelled to Pokhara, Nepal, as a volunteer in 2008 for 3 months, Kellie quickly fell in love with the Nepalese people. Nepal has a huge issue of child homelessness, and the vast majority of these children are illiterate boys aged between 10 and 18. Over 95% of “street children” are addicted to some form of solvent, which are cheap and widely available. Sniffing solvents offers these children brief respite from the pain of living on the streets, often with nobody to care for them and at constant risk of abuse. Kellie works with The Street Children Rehab Centre, which offers real support to young Nepalese children, who are particularly vulnerable in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake which killed almost 9,000 people in Nepal in 2015.

Helping the forgotten “street children”

The Street Children Rehab Centre offers refuge, access to doctors, clean water, food, and education to the forgotten street children of Nepal. Kellie has had the privilege of watching some of these children grow up over the eight years she has been travelling to Nepal. Shree-Ram is one such boy who Kellie first met when he was eight years old, after she introduced him to The Street Children Rehab Centre. He is now a 16-year-old, happy, healthy young man who, instead of living on the streets, has a home with his “brothers” at the foundation, clean water, and food and attends school every day.

Working to break the cycle of child marriage for young women

Kellie also works with The Foster Foundation, a family run organisation that offers the opportunity of education to Nepalese girls in a country that has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world.

With 41% of Nepalese girls married before the age of 18, making education accessible to them in a secure environment enables them to seek employment. This helps to break the cycle of poverty, which is one of the main factors of child marriage. Kellie has also worked with a number of impoverished young girls from a local school over the course of eight years. These young girls are normally faced with little choice but to marry once they finish school. However, Kellie and other volunteers work with these children to teach them English, improving their chances to gain employment within the tourist industry in roles such as trek guides, volunteer coordinators, paragliding tourist booking office, and nurses.

Kellie makes a real change with €2000 raised

Kellie raised an impressive €2,000 this year, which went a long way to help the people of Nepal during her visit. €1,500 was allocated to send 32 children to school in 2016; this included buying and fitting each child for a school uniform, school bags, books and shoes as well as paying their school fees for the year! The children were extremely grateful and wanted to say “Thank you” or “Namaste” to all who donated! On top of that, Kellie spent the remaining €500 to buy food and medicine for a village that was badly affected by the 2015 earthquake.

Kellie – you are an inspiration!

We are extremely proud of Kellie and the incredible work she does in Nepal to make a real and lasting difference in the lives of these children. We are delighted that we have been able to support her on her amazing journey.

Scenes from Kellie's volunteer work in Nepal